People around the world often wonder why it is that defendants in the most heinous crimes are guaranteed legal representation here in the USA – regardless of economic status or financial ability and/or the nature of the crime. There is a book, “Gideon’s Trumpet,” by a renowned author which discusses the struggles of a poor Florida defendant decades ago to garner the benefit of legal counsel.

America has not always had a level playing field. Historically, there have been many injustices perpetrated against individuals and groups by the status quo – and some might argue that even today, some injustices continue. The amazing thing though about America, is that its principles of justice and equality enshrined in its Constitution have stood the test of time. Those lofty principles may not always have been practiced, but with the passage of each dispensation, as the years go by, there has been a natural progression toward their application to broader elements within society.

We are often disgusted, and rightfully so, at the atrocities, the brutalities, the sickening acts committed by those who have little or no regard for the rights or lives of others. But should we as a people fail to provide the right to legal defense for everyone, regardless of financial means or the nature of the charges, then we run the risk of regressing to the era of lynch mobs, as once existed here in parts of the USA, or to holding kangaroo courts as existed in the aftermath of revolutions and in other circumstances in some parts of the world.

History is replete with examples of fabricated and planted evidence, false confessions beaten out of accused, bigotry, prejudice against individuals or groups, and the denial of the rights to justice and fair play – and often, though not exclusively, it is disadvantaged or poor individuals who’ve ended up at the short end of the stick.

Unfortunately, the status quo in some parts of the world still do not provide for due process for accused who are often sentenced by both secular and theocratic governments without their rights to legal representation being guaranteed.

We are a blessed nation that we’ve come a long way since those days